


Your Gaze Was My Home

by cloverfield



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Bird Symbolism, Established Relationship, Gen, Kurogane is a Romantic, M/M, Post-Series, Resettling Suwa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22241401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloverfield/pseuds/cloverfield
Summary: “Suwa welcomes your return,” Fai said crisply, fighting against the joy bubbling up in his chest to keep the words cool. “Suwa thanks you for your diligence in patrolling her borders, and for ensuring the safety of her merchants across the valley that bridges her mountains in the brokering of alliances with her neighbouring lands.”“And her Priest?” asked Kurogane mildly, apparently indifferent to the calculated iciness of Fai’s formal words. “Does her Priest welcome me home, too?”
Relationships: Fai & the People of Suwa, Fay D. Fluorite/Kurogane, Kurogane & the People of Suwa
Comments: 18
Kudos: 211





	Your Gaze Was My Home

**Author's Note:**

> "There needs to be more fics about Kuro-softie's sense of romance. It's just so unexpected from looking at him."

To say that Kurogane was a contradictory man would be to lie, because Fai had never known any one person so sure of the strengths and limitations of their soul. Still, in the years since their return to Nihon (in the years since his presentation as a courtier in Tomoyo’s service and the royal court; in the years since the resettling of Suwa and the restoration of its Lord’s title and estate; in the years since Fai had made a home for himself in this small countryside manse beside the man who kept it) he had found himself discovering more about his lover than he could have possibly thought existed at first sight on that rain-soaked and fateful day in the garden of the Dimension Witch.

Which was not so surprising, really, considering they’d fallen for one another in the midst of a war that spanned dimensions and had been played out on the battleground of a princess’ soul, her very being split into shards and scattered throughout the stars; it was only reasonable, then, to assume that the love that had bloomed in the quiet moments snatched between tragedy and betrayal and pain (but also hope and trust and a family unsought but _found_ , found in spite of everything) would reveal more facets of itself in peace-time as the years unfurled.

Kurogane had no concept of shame, that Fai knew; the man was sure of himself and his self-control to the point of disregard, meaning that his blunt honesty had no fear of reprisal, and that he could, much to Syaoran’s horror, strip down to smallclothes and beyond without a thought… such as he had that one time their small group of three men and a Mokona landed on the white sand beachfront of a world where casual nudity was not only expected but _encouraged._

And yet, it was easy enough to embarrass him: to make that stern facade crumple in temper and discomfort, dark skin flushing deliciously pink and brow creasing in consternation as Fai crooned and teased and smacked pecking kisses against flushed and warm cheeks. Just one loving word or praising phrase was enough to make his Kuro-sama blush, and it was something Fai could _never_ tire of.

Kurogane was a monster in battle, it was true; violence coiled in his skilled movements, each blow calculated for destruction, for _devastation_ , and the heat in red eyes could bring down a rage that screamed through metal and shattered their foes asunder. Time and better understanding of what it truly meant to protect had not lessened his strength - only tempered it as the best blades must by necessity be. There was no place in the world Fai had felt safer than by this man’s side, even with the enemy before them.

But Fai had seen those killer’s hands card gently through Syaoran’s hair in a ruffling gesture of fondness; had seen Kurogane take Sakura’s small hand in his own to help her over steps when her new satin slippers had proven slippery on stone; had seen Mokona cradled soft and drowsy in one rough palm as she dozed, and callused fingertips stroke so gently over silky ears he’d barely thought to breathe so as not to disturb them both.

(Fai had held those hands, had kissed them; had let them stroke and sigh over skin that had never, _ever_ felt so loved.)

When the first pillars of Suwa’s shrine had risen from the overgrown ashes of its ruins, Fai had seen a warrior’s pride humbled in the face of the memories of a son who had lost everything in one burning night; and when Fai had laid the first offering at an altar reconsecrated to the guardian god whose power he sought to honour, he’d seen peace in the face of a man who had come home at long, long last.

Fai loved him. Oh, but Fai _loved_ him, more than breath or blood or bone; more than any sum of the parts that made this man more dear to him than any he had ever known. But not once in all his fondest moments, not _once_ in all the years they had been together, did Fai ever believe there would be a day when Kurogane would cease to be anything but a constant source of amazement.

“You going to let me come in, or am I supposed to sleep in the stable tonight?”

The wry tone was as earthy as the dirt of the road Kurogane had made his way home upon, the marks of which left his cloak muddied and the hems of his hakama gritty where they swirled about his ankles, but the grumpy jibe was just as welcome as the sight of that tired and travel-worn face after almost a month apart, and Fai’s heart leapt in his breast as it had at the first sound of hoofbeats on the near horizon.

“My Lord,” said Fai softly, formally, stepping out of the shadows of the roof and across the verandah proper, coming up to the steps below which Kurogane stood, dust in his hair and a curl to his mouth which would be a grin on the lips of an lesser man. “Suwa welcomes your return,” Fai said crisply, fighting against the joy bubbling up in his chest to keep the words cool. “Suwa thanks you for your diligence in patrolling her borders, and for ensuring the safety of her merchants across the valley that bridges her mountains in the brokering of alliances with her neighbouring lands.”

A month, gone to the wilderness and long conferences with the Lords and Ladies of the lands that surrounded them; a month of Fai waking alone and tending the shrine, a month of tending Suwa’s people on his own, of keeping them sheltered in the face of early spring storms and the occasional influx of demons from the tainted places that still edged the forests and farmlands - and never mind that the barriers Fai had wrought were stronger than any this earth had ever known, and never mind the fondness of the town-folk for their Lord’s foreign-born Consort. Never mind that Kurogane had trusted Fai to do what no other could: to keep their home safe and well in his absence. It was _still_ a month of sleepless nights spent waiting for Kurogane’s return while he gallivanted off into the mountains playing soldier with the men and women in his service!

“And her Priest?” asked Kurogane mildly, apparently indifferent to the calculated iciness of Fai’s formal words… and the muffled chuckling of his retainers, as they stabled horses and unhitched wagons, making such a show of casual business that they were no doubt watching one and all for the moment their Lord would face his Consort’s justified wrath at his long truancy.

“Does her Priest welcome me home, too?” There was a new scar on Kurogane’s cheek, a fading cut that stood out clean against the tan of his skin. There was dust in his hair, and it was longer now, dark strands shaggier against the sharp lines of that beloved face. There was a warmth in those eyes that Fai had missed, and all at once he felt himself melt against it, sakaki branch trembling in his fingers and dropping gently to the polished floorboards as his hands started to shake.

“He does,” sighed Fai, and threw himself without thought off the edge of the verandah, a clean jump that carried him over the steps and straight into the arms that rose to meet him. Kurogane caught him with an ease and a strength that even now chased the breath from him, and when Fai’s arms crashed around broad shoulders, clinging and hard, Kurogane only squeezed him back with much the same fierceness.

A sharp whistle came from the ranks behind them, and the joyful shout of one of the soldiers - and then cheering even as Fai pressed his face into the curve of Kurogane’s shoulder and laughed as the words _I’m back_ were murmured gently into the fall of his hair above his ear, Kurogane’s lips catching soft on the long strands creeping loose from the ribbon at his neck and pressing a kiss where no one else could see it.

 _Welcome home_ was the only thing Fai could say in return and so he did, whispered it over and over until Kurogane let him down at last.

“I have something for you,” said his lover, not a moment after Fai’s bare feet touched the raked gravel of the yard once more.

“Do you, now?” Well. A gift would go some way to making amends - and the rest of the way could be seen to once Kurogane had had a chance to wash up and rest a little.

“Mm.” Kurogane freed one hand to rifle through the folds of his kimono, the other still clasped about Fai’s hip even as he searched, and Fai was in no mood to discourage the not-so-subtle hold, not as one by one Kurogane’s retainers passed them by with knowing grins and half-respectful bows sketched out as they took their leave. No doubt they had their own ideas of how their Lord would be welcomed home by his Consort later in the night, and Fai couldn’t exactly argue they were wrong.

“I picked it up when we were in the Takimoto lands to the north of here; they’ve got a market district almost as big as the one we saw back in that festival world - you know, the one with the fire-eaters and the big castle with the library?” As if Fai could forget that one; Syaoran had taken one look at the stacks of shelves and nearly fainted from sheer joy.

“Yes,” said Fai, laughing just a little - Kurogane was home and he smelled of pine-needles and road-dust and horse and a bath long overdue but he was home, he was _home_ , and to Fai no perfume had ever been better - and then stopped as Kurogane eased a small parcel from the folds of his clothes and began to unwrap its cloth wrapping carefully as he could with one hand, the silk catching on the roughness of his fingertips.

Afternoon sunlight caught on the dark gloss of a lacquer hair-comb, glittering across the gilt and pearl of its inlays, casting a warm glow across the red throat of a swallow and a shimmering blue gleam from the span of its wings as it rose from the curve that swept up from the comb’s long and elegant tines, ready to take flight into the sky beyond.

Fai’s throat tightened, catching and sudden. “Kuro-sama,” he murmured, eyes wet, and his hands trembled as Kurogane laid the comb upon his palms, Fai’s heart too small for the feeling that swelled so large in his breast.

 _Your hair is getting so long now_ , Kurogane had murmured on that last night, dark fingers combing gently through the locks that spilled soft over his chest, and when he had left in the morning it had been with a lock of Fai’s hair pressed softly to his lips in a gesture of farewell that had startled tears to Fai’s eyes for days after.

“Here,” said Kurogane, and if his voice was a little gruff, then his hands were so gentle, letting go of Fai’s hip at last to take up the comb, twisting a lock of Fai’s hair that had slipped loose and sliding the comb home as though it had always belonged there.

“It’s a little crooked, but it looks good,” said Kurogane, and his fingertips were warm where they brushed soft against the edge of Fai’s ear, the slope of his cheek. “When I saw it, I knew it was meant to be yours.”

 _Thank you_. The words were there, but they wouldn’t come - caught on Fai’s lips as he bowed his head a little, his hand finding itself tangled in Kurogane’s sleeve. A swallow for love, for faithfulness; for luck and a long journey come to an happy end.

“If you want to thank me, you can run me a bath,” said Kurogane, after a soft and silent moment where they stood together in the shadow of their home, and the teasing edge to his voice made Fai laugh, lifting his head once more.

“Well, you _do_ need one,” Fai said, and wrinkled his noise delicately. “Kuro-sama.”

“ _Tch_. Come on then.” A warm hand found his own, threading their fingers together. “You can brush your hair out and put that thing in it properly after - I’m not sure I did it right.”

Fai smiled. “It feels just right to me.”

**Author's Note:**

> It's my firm belief that Fai is so, so _weak_ for those sincere moments of true romance Kurogane hits him with. And married, happily-resettled-in-Suwa Kurogane is damn good at being romantic.


End file.
